One French design firm, dubbed Nak, has conjured up an iPhone 6 design concept, with the most visibly different feature being a home button on the side rather than on the screen (shown here). The idea, no doubt, would be to free up even more space on the screen, which Apple expanded in the iPhone 5 to 4 inches from 3.5 inches in earlier models.

Smartphone blogs have begun surveying their subscribers about what they'd like to see in the next iPhone. TechRadar.phones reports that readers would like to see near-field communications support to enable more electronic payment applications and a serious overhaul of iOS now that other smartphone OSs are gaining steam. Some would like to see more cores in Apple's iPhone CPU, currently the dual-core A6. As for the NFC support, reports have surfaced about Apple working with an Australian company to add fingerprint recognition technology to a future iPhone in order to bolster security and support NFC transactions.

Others are hoping price pressure from other phone makers might result in less expensive iPhones, or even upgradeable storage, going forward, but no one seems to be holding their breath waiting for either of those developments. Still, the fact that Apple appears to be readying an iPad Mini tablet does give hope to those wishing Apple would address the budget-sensitive customer category.

Related Whitepapers

Copyright 2019 IDG Communications. ABN 14 001 592 650. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of IDG Communications is prohibited.